“Moving in with me makes perfect sense….”

Cooper continued, “Living together would be the easiest and fastest way to convince people we’re a couple—and you did assure me that’s what you want your boss to think.”

“I want to convince him you’re serious about me,” Hannah replied. “I don’t want him to get the idea that I’ve gone totally insane.”

“There’s nothing insane about it. Anyway, Hannah, I invited you to live with me, not sleep with me.”

She was wary. “You’re not trying to blackmail me into bed?”

Leigh Michaels has always loved happy endings. Even when she was a child, if a book’s conclusion didn’t please her, she’d make up one of her own. And though she always wanted to write fiction, she very sensibly planned to earn her living as a newspaper reporter. That career didn’t work out, however, and she found she ended up writing for Harlequin Mills & Boon instead—in the kind of happy ending only a romance novelist could dream up!

Leigh likes to hear from her readers. You can write to her at P.O. Box 935, Ottumwa, Iowa, 52501-0935, U.S.A.

Books by Leigh Michaels

HARLEQUIN ROMANCE®

3600—HUSBAND ON DEMAND

3604—BRIDE ON LOAN

3608—WIFE ON APPROVAL

3628—THE CORPORATE WIFE

3637—THE BRIDAL SWAP

A Convenient Affair
Leigh Michaels

www.millsandboon.co.uk

CONTENTS

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ONE

UNTIL that morning, Hannah had started to think it didn’t matter what hour of the day or night she walked Mrs. Patterson’s dog. If she abruptly decided to take Brutus out at two o’clock in the morning, she’d no doubt still run headlong into Cooper Winston somewhere along the way.

When she stopped to think about it, however, Hannah concluded that the wee hours of the morning were actually one of the more likely times to encounter the occupant of the penthouse condominium. In the hours after midnight, he was apt to be just coming home to Barron’s Court from a date… “And other associated activities,” Hannah added under her breath.

Of course, she had also run into him at the crack of dawn, at high noon, and at nine-fifteen in the evening. The time seemed to be immaterial, the encounter inevitable.

Today, however, the chain appeared to have been broken. She and Brutus had gone all the way from Barron’s Court up Grand Avenue to the governor’s mansion and back, encountering their share of commuters and joggers and even a few bundled-up babies taking their mothers out for an airing in the autumn sunshine. But for once Hannah hadn’t caught so much as a glimpse of a dark-haired, gray-eyed, broad-shouldered, supercilious six-foot hunk of testosterone named Cooper Winston.

By the time they once more reached the lobby of the condo complex, Brutus was breathing hard and Hannah could feel a glow throughout her whole body from the exercise and the crisp October breeze. She punched the button to summon the elevator and bent to release the pug’s leash from his collar. “If you wouldn’t pull so hard,” she reminded him, “you wouldn’t be so out of breath at the end of your walk.”

She hadn’t heard the Art Deco doors open, but even before the man inside the elevator stepped into the lobby, she knew he was there. So much for thinking my luck has changed, she thought, and slowly straightened up, turning to face Cooper Winston.

She wasn’t sure precisely why the hair at the back of her neck always stood straight up the moment he appeared on the scene. Probably sheer dislike, Hannah thought, coupled with a touch of apprehension—for there was no doubt that lately she was the one who had been coming out the worse for wear in their encounters. Whatever the reason, it was certainly a negative one; it wasn’t as if there was anything she found magnetically attractive about the man.

Not that he was exactly hard on the eyes, she admitted. The first time she’d encountered him—over a negotiating table at Stephens & Webster, where she was an associate attorney—Hannah had thought Cooper Winston was extremely good-looking. She was partial to tall men with black hair and curly eyelashes and chiseled features. But of course that had been before she’d encountered the tight-set jaw, the perpetual crease between his brows, and the icy silver of his gaze.

All of which were in evidence right now.

She considered asking him—sweetly, of course—if he’d drunk his vinegar for breakfast as usual. But since there was nothing to be gained by gratuitous insults, she looked through him instead and said with cool politeness, “Good morning, Mr. Winston.”

He didn’t answer. She felt his gaze slide over her, and she was suddenly and painfully aware of her tousled hair, her wind-reddened cheeks, her far-from-new sweatsuit, and the faint aroma of dog that she’d acquired when she’d scooped up Brutus and carried him across Grand Avenue to beat a stream of traffic.

If the man dared to make a comment…

She looked straight at him, her chin held high.

Cooper didn’t say a word. He didn’t have to, Hannah thought bitterly. One dark eyebrow, lifting just a fraction of an inch, said it all.

At her feet, Brutus growled.

Cooper looked down. “You no doubt have some logical reason why this animal isn’t on a leash, Ms. Lowe.”

“Brutus has never bitten you,” she pointed out.

“He’s threatened often enough.”

“Only because you make it so plain that you don’t like him.”

“What’s to like? He’s ugly, overweight, and ill-tempered.”

“Being ugly isn’t his fault,” Hannah said crisply. “All pugs are. And if you were locked up all day, every day, in Mrs. Patterson’s teeny little apartment, you’d probably be—” She bit her tongue, but it was already too late.

Cooper’s voice was silky. “Overweight, too? And even more ill-tempered than I already am?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“What a nice compliment you’ve paid Mrs. Patterson. She’s quite a powerful woman, if merely being in her company could have such a destructive effect.”

“Wait a minute! If you think I was saying that Mrs. Patterson is—” Hannah sputtered to a stop. He’d done it again, she admitted, irritated. Without even trying, he’d put her squarely in the wrong—and it wasn’t much comfort to know that this time she’d handed him the opportunity.

“I’m sure you wouldn’t dream of saying anything against Mrs. Patterson, Ms. Lowe. At least not where she might hear about it.”

Hannah bristled. “I simply meant that her arthritis keeps her from taking Brutus for walks, so of course he’s fat and irritable and not well-conditioned.”

“But you’ve been exercising him for weeks now,” Cooper pointed out, “and though he does seem to have slimmed down and stopped wheezing like a hippo, he’s still in a bad mood all the time. What does that say about your company, Ms. Lowe?”

She smiled up at him. “Are you ever going to forgive me for interfering with your agreement to sell that restaurant chain, Mr. Winston? After all, I was only looking after my client’s best interests. And the sale did eventually go through as you’d arranged, even though the terms were slightly altered.”

“That’s what you call slightly altered? Ms. Lowe, I’ll forgive you about the same time I forget the fifteen million bucks your interference cost me.”

Hannah feigned a sigh of relief. “Then, since fifteen million is pocket change to a man like you, I must be well on the way to rehabilitation.”

“Fifteen million,” he mused, “and all because you batted your eyelashes like an ingenue and asked a last-minute, breathless, innocent-sounding question.”

“It wasn’t like that.”

“You mean it wasn’t as innocent as it sounded? I’m glad you’re at least admitting to being cold and calculating.” He didn’t give her an opportunity to answer, but strode across the lobby toward the street.

Just as well, Hannah thought. Brutus had only growled at him, as usual; Hannah herself would have been tempted to bite the man if he’d kept it up.

On the fifth floor, she delivered Brutus to his owner and with regret refused a cup of coffee. Then, rather than wait for the elevator again and risk the chance that instead of leaving for the day Cooper had only been going to the convenience shop down the street for a newspaper, Hannah took the fire stairs up two flights and walked down the hall to Isobel’s condo.

Isobel’s condo. Even though Hannah had lived there for nearly three months now, she still didn’t call it home.

She paused just inside the door, bracing herself to face the silence. The rooms had never been quiet like this when Isobel was alive. But it had been almost exactly a month since Isobel had gone to a friend’s house in Windsor Heights one afternoon to play bridge—and never came back.

It seemed to Hannah that the condo which had been Isobel’s home for so many years was waiting for her to return. The sofa cushions were still crushed as if she had stood up just moments ago. The magazine she’d been reading lay facedown on the fainting couch in her silk-draped bedroom. The satin and lace peignoir she’d taken off when she’d dressed for her bridge party that last afternoon still lay across the foot of her bed. Bath powder still dusted the glass top of her mirrored dressing table.

Even the musky scent of Isobel’s perfume had hardly faded; it seemed to be embedded in everything she’d owned, and every time Hannah opened a drawer or a closet she released a new cloud of fragrance.

It might have been a little easier to make the transition, Hannah thought, if she herself had lived there for more than a couple of months before Isobel died. But she’d still felt pretty much like a guest on the day Isobel’s heart had abruptly given out—cautious of every action and every word, trying her best not to get in her elderly hostess’s way or upset Isobel’s longstanding routines. Now, living alone in Isobel’s condo, Hannah felt like an intruder.

She’d intended to move out immediately, but that was more easily said than done, considering the shortage of apartments in the city just now and the prices they commanded.

Besides, when she’d mentioned the move to her boss at the law firm, Brenton Bannister had simply shaken his head. “It isn’t as if you don’t have a right to be there till the estate is settled,” he’d said. “Your aunt was one of our clients, and I’m sure Ken Stephens would prefer to have the condo occupied—especially by someone he can trust—than to leave all of Isobel’s treasures there unprotected while he deals with the paperwork and gets everything in order.”

“She wasn’t my aunt, she was a distant cousin,” Hannah had reminded him. “And Barron’s Court is the most exclusive condo complex in the city. It’s not exactly a high-crime district.”

But Brenton had only smiled at her as if she’d said something terribly witty, and the next day he assured her that he’d spoken to the senior partner who had been Isobel’s attorney and gotten approval for Hannah to stay on.

So Hannah had stayed, but her discomfort hadn’t lessened as the weeks went by. Every time she touched one of Isobel’s possessions—even if she was only moving it out of her way—she had to fight off a superstitious shiver. And it might take months to sort out Isobel’s estate; there appeared to be no end to the things the woman had owned.

Regardless of what Brenton thought about her rights, Hannah decided, it was past time to find another place to live.

Of course, she’d never find anything as nice or as convenient to the office as Barron’s Court was, even if she could afford the price such a place would cost. But even if she ended up living in a cracker box, at least she wouldn’t be running into Cooper Winston all the time. That would be the biggest benefit of all.

Wherever Cooper had gone that morning, it wasn’t far enough for Hannah’s taste—because when she pushed open the lobby door, her nemesis was standing under the portico, obviously waiting for his car to be brought around from the garage at the back of the complex.

She almost drew back in order to avoid him, knowing that the parking valets wouldn’t keep him waiting long. But Brenton would be along any minute to pick her up for the short ride to work, and he wasn’t known for patience any more than Cooper was. So Hannah gritted her teeth and went out into the crisp autumn air.

The portico wasn’t very large, so Hannah found herself standing uncomfortably close to Cooper.

His gaze slid slowly over her emerald green suit, the best-quality item her wardrobe boasted. “I must say I like that fashion ensemble better than the one which includes the dog. I realize it isn’t saying much, but—”

“You know,” Hannah mused, “your grandfather would have done us all a favor, when he remodeled this building into condos, if he’d provided separate front entrances.”

A sleek red sports car pulled up in the fire lane and Brenton Bannister lowered the passenger-side window and leaned across the seat. “Good morning, Winston. Can I offer you a lift?”

Hannah wondered for an instant if he seriously expected Cooper Winston to fold himself into the sports car’s tiny rear seat, or if Brenton had forgotten about her altogether.

“They’re bringing my car around now,” Cooper said. “But thank you.”

“You don’t carry any hard feelings over that last little deal, I hope,” Brenton probed.

“Not where you’re concerned.” Cooper opened the passenger door of Brenton’s car with a flourish and held out a hand as if to help Hannah get in.

Or to push me into the street, Hannah thought. She avoided his touch, though she thanked him with elaborate politeness.

As the car pulled away from the curb, Brenton said, “He’s mellowing. I thought he would, given a little time. He’s a businessman, and he knows you can’t always win on every point.”

Hannah stared at him in disbelief. Hadn’t he heard the irony in Cooper’s voice? “Mellowing? I suppose you think Mount Rushmore is made of blue cheese, too.”

“Hannah, you’ll never get Winston’s business with that attitude.”

“Stephens & Webster will never get his business at all.”

“Why not?”

“After all the money we cost him last time around—”

“Fifteen million is peanuts to Cooper Winston,” Brenton said comfortably. “Anyway, that’s precisely my point. As soon as he cools off, he’ll want us on his team because we’re demonstrably better than the firm he was using. They never anticipated that little loophole.”

Hannah bit her tongue. It wasn’t her job to try to break through Brenton’s delusions.

“And just think, Hannah—that deal was a very small one, relatively speaking. There will be more. When Winston’s monolith swallowed up its rival in that merger deal, they got all kinds of side businesses that they won’t want to keep. The restaurant chain our client bought was only a fraction of the package. There’s a shipping firm and the aircraft refitters and a string of nursing homes—” He was practically drooling at the thought.

“I think it’s a little early to start looking for buyers,” Hannah said dryly. “He said good morning, he didn’t offer us a retainer.”

“It still wouldn’t hurt to be nice to him,” Brenton argued.

Yes, it would, Hannah thought. It would hurt a great deal. Compared to the effort involved in being nice to Cooper Winston, suffering through an impacted wisdom tooth would be like winning a prize.

Within two hours of arriving at work, Hannah was beginning to feel as if she’d been buried alive in the law library archives. Her table, located in the farthest corner, was surrounded by boxes stuffed with crumbling documents, and each time she moved a page, the musty aroma made her want to sneeze.

The first few days of digging through Jacob Jones’s old files hadn’t been so bad, but with each passing hour her claustrophobia seemed to grow worse. This case was nowhere near as interesting as the transfer of the restaurant chain had been.

But so long as she was merely an associate, the lowest-level attorney the firm had, the tedious details would fall to her. The restaurant case had had its dull days, too, she reminded herself. In fact, it had been pretty much routine right up until the instant before the deal was consummated, when Hannah had thought of one more small thing to be considered. The one small thing which everyone else, on both sides, had overlooked completely. The one small thing which had cost Cooper Winston fifteen million dollars.

Brenton Bannister poked his head around the corner of a bookshelf. “How’s it going?”

“Not very well. I haven’t found a shred of evidence yet to support our client’s case.”

“Don’t sweat it just now.” He perched on the corner of her table.

Hannah looked at him in disbelief. What on earth did he have on his mind to make him suddenly regard the Jones case as insignificant?

“Ken Stephens wants to see you in his office this morning,” Brenton said briskly. “It’s about your Aunt Isobel’s estate.”

“Cousin,” Hannah said automatically.

“What?”

“I’ve told you before, Isobel wasn’t my aunt, she was my grandfather’s cousin.”

“Aunt, cousin, whatever.” Brenton shrugged. “I suggest you hurry right upstairs and find out what he wants. You don’t keep a senior partner waiting.”

“Why take up his time at all? He sent a message through you to say I could stay in the condo. I wonder why he didn’t just do the same to tell me it’s time to leave.”

“Don’t be silly,” Brenton scoffed. “You’re too important for that kind of treatment now.”

Hannah frowned. “Important? What do you mean?”

Brenton hesitated, as if he’d said more than he’d intended. Then he shrugged. “Just a guess. Considering how agreeable he was about you staying on in the first place, I’m betting Isobel left you the condo.”

Hannah shook her head. “I doubt she’d will her home to a distant cousin whom she’d met for the first time just weeks before she died.”

“Why not?” Brenton said coolly. “Who else is there to inherit it? Anyway, she invited you to move in with her—which is more togetherness than a lot of elderly people would offer their young relatives. She must have had something of the sort in mind.”

“I think,” Hannah mused, “that she saw a chance to acquire a personal maid and social secretary for the cost of room and board. Not that I minded helping out, but there never was a time she didn’t have a list of things for me to do. Letters to write and phone calls to return and errands to run and even canapés to hand around when she entertained—”

Brenton laughed. “Maybe this is her way of paying you back. From everything I’ve heard about Isobel, waiting to reward you till she was certain she wouldn’t need the money anymore would be right down her alley.”

Hannah had to smile, for Brenton was unquestionably right. Her elderly relative had been anything but the fluffy, generous, grandmotherly type.

“Anyway, Ken Stephens is waiting for you.” Brenton slid off the corner of the table and added casually, “I’ll be tied up with clients all afternoon. But I’ll take you out to dinner tonight at the Flamingo Room and you can tell me all about it.”

Hannah was startled. In the months she’d worked under Brenton’s supervision, they’d spent countless evenings together over pizza or Chinese takeout and one case or another, and they’d grown to be friends. He’d taken her to the theater for her birthday, and she’d taken him to a concert for his. But there was something different about this invitation. Perhaps it was the restaurant he’d chosen—the nicest one in the city. Or perhaps it was something in the tone of his voice…

Her surprise must have registered in her face, for Brenton suddenly looked as self-conscious as a schoolboy. “We’ll make a special evening of it. A very special evening. Over the last few months, Hannah, as I’ve gotten to know you…” He cleared his throat. “But you haven’t got time for that now. You can’t keep Ken Stephens waiting.”

Hannah brushed the musty scent of Jacob Jones’s files off her suit as best she could and took the elevator to the uppermost level of Stephens & Webster’s three floors, to the most-prized corner office belonging to the senior partner.

She was still a bit dazed by Brenton’s declaration of love—if, indeed, that was what it was. But what else could he have meant?

As I’ve gotten to know you…A very special evening…

The very idea that Brenton might actually be serious about her created an all-gone sensation in the pit of Hannah’s stomach. She wasn’t sure she liked it. She’d looked on him as a friend, that was all. If he wanted their relationship to be more—

But she’d deal with that later, she told herself. Right now, she needed to concentrate on Ken Stephens and whatever he had to say about Isobel’s estate.

And who knew? Maybe Brenton was right after all and Isobel had left her something. Not the condo at Barron’s Court, of course—that was far too much to expect. But it wouldn’t take much of an inheritance right now to make a big difference in Hannah’s life.

Ken Stephens’s waiting room was a great deal larger than the cubicle Hannah used as an office, and it was far more luxurious. Furthermore, the young woman who sat at his secretary’s desk was much better dressed than Hannah herself was.

But then—unlike Hannah—Ken Stephens’s daughter didn’t have law school loans to repay, so she could afford designer clothes. Of course, that begged the question of what Kitty Stephens was doing here at all; if she was in the habit of acting as her father’s secretary, Hannah had never heard about it.

Hannah took a chair and entertained herself by making a mental list of the things she would buy, if indeed Isobel had left her a small legacy. A few more really good suits would be first. Clothes might make the man, as the old saying went, but they could destroy a woman. A man could get by with a minimally stocked closet and a good dry cleaner, since one masculine pinstriped suit looked so very much like another. A professional woman, on the other hand, needed a wide variety if she wasn’t to get looks of the sort Cooper Winston had given her this morning.

Not that her desire for new clothes had anything to do with him. For all she cared, he could look at her in the same green suit from now till Armageddon. After all, he didn’t have to pay attention to what she wore.

And it wasn’t that she was getting her hopes up for a legacy, either. She was just killing time. So much for Brenton’s idea that Ken Stephens was waiting for her; it was too bad she hadn’t thought to bring along a carton of Jacob Jones’s old receipts so she could keep working. But of course the musty smell would hardly have been a welcome addition to the senior partner’s waiting room.

A chime on the secretary’s desk sounded, and—looking bored—Kitty Stephens waved a hand toward the heavy door of the inner office.

Hannah tapped and went in.

Behind a desk that was roughly the size of Hannah’s entire cubicle, a silver-haired man half rose and pointed toward a pair of chairs pulled up directly across the polished surface from him. “Have a seat, Ms. Lowe. I’m sorry to have interrupted your day. I understand you’re working with Bannister on the Jones case now.”

Hannah smiled faintly. “I wouldn’t say I’m working with, exactly. I’m simply going through all the papers so I can brief him on the background before the case comes to trial.”

“Well, that’s the kind of support we rely on our young associates to provide.” His gaze coolly assessed Hannah. “I understand you’re also the genius who caused a bit of a panic at the last minute over Cooper Winston’s restaurant chain.”

Hannah wished that he’d made it sound more like a compliment. “Yes, sir.”

“Our client was quite grateful. I thought you’d like to know.” He leaned back in his chair. “In a few minutes we’ll get started on tidying up the details concerning Isobel’s estate. But in the meantime, tell me how you came to be living with her. I’m afraid I never knew the fine points.”

And as Isobel’s attorney, he probably would have known all about me, Hannah thought, if Isobel had left me anything of significance. Obviously, it was a good thing she’d never really gotten her hopes up—much less decided what color her new suits should be.

“It’s quite simple,” Hannah said. “When I first came to town, of course, I was very busy with my new job here at the firm. But after a few months, I went to visit Isobel. It was just a social thing, really, to go and pay my respects to a senior member of the family.”

“You’d known her for some time, then? Years, perhaps?”

“Actually, no. I mean, I knew her name, of course, but I’d never met her before. It hasn’t been a very close family. And it wasn’t a very close relationship, either—she was my grandfather’s cousin—but since much of my family is gone, I wanted to make contact with Isobel.”

“So you visited her often?”

“No. Just the one time.”

Ken Stephens sounded politely incredulous. “And on the strength of that one visit, she invited you to move in with her?”

Hannah’s jaw tightened, and she had to make an effort to keep her voice level. “Yes, she did. It surprised me, too, at the time. I’d happened to mention that my roommate was getting married and I was having trouble finding an apartment I both liked and could afford, and Isobel offered me a place to live for a while. I thought she meant that we could do each other a good turn. I could look after her a bit—”

“Look after Isobel?” Ken Stephens sounded astonished.

“Yes. Of course, that was before I knew her very well,” Hannah pointed out. “It didn’t take long to realize that the last thing Isobel wanted was to be treated as if she was elderly.”

“Quite a nice little arrangement you had,” he mused.

Hannah gritted her teeth. She was grateful that another tap on the door prevented her from saying something she was bound to regret.

“Now that you’re both here,” Ken Stephens said with satisfaction, “we can get started.”

Hannah didn’t even look around at the newcomer. She was still listening to Ken Stephens’s last comment echoing in her mind. A nice little arrangement you had, he’d said.

Past tense.

Well, it was no more than she’d expected. She’d sit quietly though the formalities and start studying the classifieds over lunch…

The new arrival said, “Sorry I’m late, Stephens.”

Hannah froze. It’s your imagination, she told herself frantically. There is no reason on earth for Cooper Winston to be here. This is Isobel’s estate we’re talking about, not some merger.

But there was no denying, when she turned her head to look, that Cooper was standing just inside the office, one hand still on the door. Hannah noted that Kitty Stephens had not only stood up to show him to the door, but she’d ushered him all the way in. And he was looking down at her as if fascinated by the designer scarf at her throat—or, perhaps, the face it framed.

“Thank you,” he said gently.

This was a different Cooper, Hannah thought. For one thing, it was the first time she’d seen him without the frown she had thought was permanently etched between his brows.

So was that irritable expression one he directed only at Hannah herself? Or was Kitty Stephens the exception, the one person who didn’t inspire him to sarcasm?

“Thanks for coming, Winston,” Ken Stephens said. “Kitty, see that we’re not disturbed.”

The secretary murmured, “Yes, Daddy,” and withdrew.

Her shock diminishing, Hannah leaned back in her chair. “I didn’t know you’d be here, Mr. Winston,” she said, with her best sunny smile, “or I’d have brought your friend Brutus. Which brings me to the question of why you are here. What on earth do you have to do with settling Isobel’s affairs?”

“Interesting choice of words,” Cooper said.

Ken Stephens cleared his throat. “You’re both here because you’re both mentioned in Isobel’s will.”

Cooper sat down in the chair next to Hannah’s. He was, in her opinion, paying an inordinate amount of attention to preserving the perfect crease in his trousers. “Please don’t keep us in suspense. I’m sure Ms. Lowe is panting to know how much she’s inherited.”

“As long as Isobel didn’t do anything idiotic like naming you as a trustee,” Hannah snapped, “I don’t care what she might have left me.”

The disbelief in Cooper’s eyes made her long to kick him.

“And why would you be named in her will?” Hannah went on. “It’s not as if you were intimate friends. Did you even speak to her when you met in the lobby?”

“Not if I could help it,” Cooper said coolly.

“As a matter of fact,” Ken Stephens said, “there’s no point in anyone getting high hopes. As I just mentioned, Isobel made a will, but after a full month of investigation I’ve discovered that she actually had very little to leave to anyone.”

Hannah frowned. “I don’t understand. She owned the condo—”

Ken shook his head. “No. She had a life interest in the condo. With her death, all rights to the Barron’s Court property revert to the trust which owns it.”

Cooper leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms.

“The furniture,” Hannah said. “It must be worth a fortune. Some of it’s hundreds of years old.”

“Undoubtedly true,” Ken agreed. “It was rented from some of the best antique dealers in the city—who, by the way, are a bit anxious to get it all back now that the lease has expired with Isobel’s death. Her china and the silver tea service are on loan, too.”

“Her jewelry?” Hannah’s voice was little more than a breath.

“It’s been appraised.” Ken Stephens tossed a sheaf of paper on the desk. “Here’s a copy of the jeweler’s report, but in brief it says that everything Isobel owned was good quality. Extremely good quality—for costume jewelry.”

“It was fake?” Hannah whispered.

For a moment the attorney looked almost sympathetic. “I have to admit it fooled me, too, Ms. Lowe.” He turned his attention to the folder which lay open on his desk blotter. “Isobel’s income consisted of a pension which ends with her death. And she apparently spent the full amount every month, because her bank accounts—checking, savings, and money market—total just under a thousand dollars, which is almost exactly the amount of the bills outstanding at the time of her death. There are no brokerage accounts, no stocks, no money owed to her.”

“I hope you’re not expecting much in the way of a fee for settling the estate, Stephens.” Cooper raised a hand to rub his jaw. “But I guess if you knew Isobel for a while, you should have expected that she’d want something for nothing. How about furs? She had a mink once, and an ermine stole—”

“Now who’s taking inventory?” Hannah muttered.

“She got rid of those a few years back,” Ken said, “when it became politically incorrect to wear them.”

Cooper made a sound which might have been a snort. “More likely it’s because they were too heavy to carry around but she didn’t want to admit she was getting weak in her declining years.”

The attorney shuffled his papers. “Isobel made a provision in her will for the rest of her clothing to be donated to a community theater group.”

“A theater?” Cooper asked. “One might almost conclude the woman had a sense of humor after all. In short, it looks as if you get nothing but the towels, Ms. Lowe. Too bad about all your expectations.”

“I didn’t have any,” Hannah said tightly.

“You can’t think I’ll believe that. You talk about me taking inventory, but the way you recited that list of possible assets a minute ago, it sounded as if you’d rehearsed it. You’ve probably been putting yourself to sleep with it every night since Isobel died, counting bonds and jewels and chairs and silver flatware instead of sheep.”

Ignore him, Hannah ordered herself. “About the condo, Mr. Stephens—you did say, after Isobel died, that I could stay on for a while. I’m planning to move, of course, but how long—?”

“I don’t see any problem in you staying until all the contents have been moved out. But you know as well as anyone, Ms. Lowe, that condos in Barron’s Court are in great demand, and I’m sure the trust would like to settle the matter as quickly as possible.”

“I understand.” Hannah slid to the edge of her chair. “In that case, I’d better get busy looking for a place to live.”

Ken Stephens extracted a page and closed the folder. “There is just one more thing. In fact, it’s actually the most valuable item mentioned in Isobel’s will.”

Under any other circumstances, Hannah would have been too preoccupied with her own troubles to notice the way Cooper’s muscles tensed. But because she had perched on the edge of her chair, her arm was almost against his, and she could feel the sudden tautness in his body. “In that case,” she said dryly, “I think I’ll stick around till the bitter end.”

“No one would expect you to do anything else,” Cooper agreed.

The senior partner turned his chair so he could reach into the credenza behind his desk. A moment later, he set a wooden box in the middle of his desk blotter and settled back in his chair.

Cooper’s hand went out as if to touch it, and then paused in mid-air as if he was having trouble restraining himself.

Hannah stared at the box in puzzlement. It looked like a small jewelry box, about eight inches square, made of some sort of dark wood which had been heavily carved on every surface she could see. It was pretty enough, she supposed. But what could possibly make it the most valuable thing Isobel had owned?

Not that it has much competition for the honor.

“So what did Isobel say about the box?” Cooper asked.

Was it her imagination, Hannah wondered, or was his voice really just a trifle hoarse?

“Let me get it exactly right.” Ken Stephens flipped through the document in front of him. “Here it is. ‘I am well aware that Cooper Winston feels the Lovers’ Box should be his. But since it is the thing I treasure most, and since it was freely given to me and thus is mine to do with as I choose, I leave it to my young cousin, Hannah Lowe. I hope that for my sake Hannah will take good care of it.”’

Cooper leaped to his feet. “The old biddy! She was obstructionist and opportunistic to the end!”

“The Lovers’ Box?” Hannah leaned forward. “Why is it called that?”

“Long story,” Cooper said. “I doubt you’d be interested.”

Ken Stephens paused, his mouth hanging open, and stared at Cooper. Then he seemed to change his mind about whatever he’d intended to say and pushed the box toward Hannah. “It’s yours now, Ms. Lowe.”

Hannah’s fingers trembled slightly as she picked up the box. It was heavier than she’d expected, and it felt bulky in her hands. The pattern on top was geometric rather than scenic—she’d half expected to find a picture of a couple portrayed there. But in that case, she supposed, the reason behind the name wouldn’t have been a long story.

Hannah pressed the button-like brass knob with her thumb and slowly lifted the lid.

The box was empty, and because the sides and top were quite thick to allow for the depth of the carving, the interior was smaller than she’d expected. The inside of the box didn’t even boast a velvet lining; it was only raw wood, sanded smooth—though it was an exotic, fine-grained variety that Hannah didn’t recognize. Wasn’t there a species called ironwood? The denseness of that type of wood, along with the thickness of the walls, certainly accounted for the box’s weight.

But nothing she could see explained why Cooper would be even vaguely interested in owning it.

“That’s everything.” Ken brushed his hands together as if he was clearing dust off his fingertips. “Ms. Lowe, if you move before all of Isobel’s possessions are reclaimed, you’ll let me know, I’m sure.”

There was no question about the dismissive note in the attorney’s voice. Hannah tucked the Lovers’ Box under her arm and picked up her handbag.

Cooper was suddenly between her and the door. “Ms. Lowe, I think perhaps if we could talk about this, we could come to an agreement.”

Hannah looked up at him, eyes narrowed. “So—now that I have something you want, you’ll be nice to me? No, thanks, Mr. Winston. I’m going to go off by myself somewhere and see if I can figure out why this box is so important to you.”

She stepped around him to let herself out of the office, trying to ignore the fact that he was following her so closely she could feel his warmth.

As she opened the door, Ken Stephens said heartily, “No need to hurry away, Winston. I thought my daughter and I would take you to lunch.”

From the secretary’s desk, Kitty smiled brilliantly. “Do say yes, Mr. Winston. I’d so like to get to know you better.”

Hannah rolled her eyes. She was almost disappointed; she’d have expected a little more subtlety from Ken Stephens’s daughter. But it was clear there was no need for Hannah to hurry in order to avoid Cooper—he’d be tied up for hours if Kitty had anything to say about it.

Hannah glanced at her watch. She might as well get a sandwich and start looking at the ads for apartments before she went back to work.

Traffic was heavy, and Hannah had to wait for a bus to move before she could cross the street to the deli. Finally, with a whoosh of exhaust, the monster pulled away from the stop, and she darted across.

She was stepping onto the opposite curb when she heard her name called. Surprised, she turned and watched in fascinated disbelief as Cooper dodged between cars—ignoring traffic signals, horns and angry shouts—to follow her.

“You don’t have to try to figure it out,” he said as he came up to her. “Give me a chance, and I’ll tell you why I want that box.”

CHAPTER TWO

COOPER felt as if he was shouting in order to be heard above the roaring engine of the bus that had just stopped at the curb, less than three feet away.

Hannah looked thoughtfully at him, and then her gaze slid past him to the bus. For a moment Cooper thought in disbelief that she meant to walk around him and get on it. But just as she sidestepped him, the bus pulled away with a roar and a blast of diesel exhaust.

Relief trickled through him, followed by irritation at the very idea of feeling pleased because she was sticking around to talk to him. As if she didn’t have plenty of reason not to rush onto that bus! Her timing was impeccable, though, he had to admit. She’d actually made it look as if she was doing him some sort of favor by staying to listen.

His voice held a sharp edge. “I’d just as soon the rest of the world didn’t hear this conversation, so let’s go where we won’t have to shout. I’ll buy you a cup of coffee.”

She looked up at him, her green eyes wide and challenging. “Coffee? Aren’t you at least going to offer me lunch?”

Cynicism swept over him, and for a split second he considered walking off without a word and leaving her standing there. Then she turned slightly and he caught a glimpse of the Lovers’ Box tucked securely under her arm. “I suppose you want to go to the Flamingo Room.”

“No,” she said pleasantly, “but only because I’m going there tonight. For right now, I’d settle for a hot dog from the stand around the corner. I’m hungry, and it’s enough of a sacrifice to actually try to have a conversation with you without attempting to do it on an empty stomach.”

Cooper didn’t bother to answer. He thrust out a hand to hail a passing cab and helped Hannah in with chilly politeness. “Cicero’s,” he told the cabbie.

“Italian? Does that mean you don’t like hot dogs?” she asked with obviously feigned interest.

Did she have to look at him that way? Her eyes were not only wide now but so incredibly clear that if he didn’t know better he’d think he could see her soul…

Knock it off, Winston, he told himself. He knew from firsthand experience how sharp the woman could be, especially when she was looking innocent. Besides, no relative of Isobel’s, especially one that had actually been close enough to live with her, was likely to have a soul any more than the old woman herself had. And even if she did, a little voice in the back of his brain murmured, that wouldn’t be the part of Hannah Lowe you’d be interested in, anyway.

He smothered the thought. Hannah Lowe—attractive? Some men would no doubt think so. Men who didn’t know her as well as he did.

What a puritanical sort of name it was, for a woman who was anything but. Her scent, the same sort of musky perfume that Isobel had fancied, gave the lie to that all-American front she tried to put on. Even when she was dressed for a walk with that incredibly bad-tempered dog, she was sexy enough to melt the sidewalk. A hot dog in the park—he almost wished he’d bought her one, just to see what she’d have done with it.

As the maître d’ showed them to an alcove at the far side of Cicero’s main dining room, Cooper slowed his pace a little, dropping back just far enough to watch the way her silky skirt shimmered as she moved. He’d seen some intriguing walks in his day, but Hannah Lowe’s put them all to shame.

Which was exactly what he ought to be feeling right now, he told himself firmly. Shame, for not keeping his mind on the business at hand.

He held back until the maître d’ had helped Hannah with her chair, and then he sat down across from her, watching as she placed the Lovers’ Box carefully on the corner of the table, as far as possible from him. Which wasn’t far, really, because under the narrow table his knee was brushing hers. She didn’t pull away, merely looked at him with narrowed eyes.

He gave an order to the waiter and settled back in his chair to watch her fiddle with the Lovers’ Box.

Finally it appeared she had it settled to her satisfaction. She looked across at him, and a faint flush crept over her almost-transparent skin. “You look as jumpy as if I was handling dynamite,” she said. “What’s so special about this box?”

“It’s certainly not dangerous. And it wouldn’t be anything special to most people. It’s important to me only because one of my ancestors was a sea captain who brought it back from an around-the-world voyage close to two centuries ago.”

“Sentimental value,” she said thoughtfully.

“Exactly.” The waiter brought two glasses of red wine and a basket of bread sticks. Cooper pushed the basket invitingly close to her and said abruptly, “I’ll give you five hundred dollars for the box, right now.”

“Five hundred,” she mused. She slowly turned the stem of her wineglass between slim fingers. “I thought you said it was special.”

He felt a tinge of reluctant admiration for her negotiating skills. “Don’t let Ken Stephens’s comments about its value deceive you. On the open market it would bring only a fraction of that. As Isobel knew quite well, the value of that box is precisely what I’m willing to pay for it, and not a dime more.”

“But it’s so difficult to define sentiment in monetary terms,” Hannah said.

“Don’t try to blackmail me into a higher offer.”

She tilted her head a little to one side. “And don’t growl at me. I was simply thinking that it must have every bit as much sentimental value for me as it has for you.”

“Because it’s the only thing left you by your dear departed aunt? Don’t be ridiculous.”

She said, sounding almost weary, “She wasn’t my aunt, she was my grandfather’s cousin.”

“Even less of a connection. And less of a reason for you to want to keep it.”

“That,” Hannah said lightly, “depends entirely on the point of view. Why is it called the Lovers’ Box?”

“Agree to sell it to me, and I’ll tell you.” He watched the light from the sconce above her head play against her hair, bringing out red highlights in the chestnut brown. “How much do you think it’s worth?”

“I thought you weren’t willing to go above five hundred.”

Cooper shrugged. “There are limits on what I’m willing to pay, of course. But humor me, Hannah. Give me an idea of what your estimate is. How much?” Come on, sweetheart, he urged. Once you set a value, no matter how outlandish it is, I’ve got you. You’re committed to making the sale. Then it’s just a matter of haggling over the final price.

“I’ll have to think about it,” she countered. “Why do you want it so badly?”

He had to admit a reluctant admiration that she’d avoided the trap. “I told you why.”

She shook her head. “No. You told me how it got into your family, not why it was so important for you to get it back. Or, for that matter, how it got out of your family and ended up in Isobel’s hands. What did she say, in the will? It was freely given to her—something like that. So why you think you deserve to have it back at all is—”

“Nothing was free where Isobel was concerned.” Cooper knew he sounded sarcastic. He didn’t much care; it was true. “She got that box through deceit and extortion.”

Hannah’s daintily-arched eyebrows climbed. “Not much of an extortion scheme,” she murmured, “if the prize was worth five hundred dollars, tops.”

“If that’s your way of warning me that you’re even better at extortion than Isobel was—”

In a flash, her eyes went from clear to turbulent, from a millpond to a storm-tossed sea. “If you expect me to sit here and listen to you, you’d better be careful about throwing accusations around.”

“But if you walk out on me now, you won’t get anything at all. If you name a price we can agree on, you’ll be that much better off and you won’t have to deal with me anymore. So give yourself a break, Hannah. How much do you want for the box?”

“Why are you so sure I’ll take money for it? Maybe, if you tell me how Isobel got her hands on it, I’ll feel sorry for you and give it back for nothing.”

And donkeys will fly, he thought. He hadn’t intended to sit around with her long enough to explain it all, but he supposed there was no real reason not to tell her the Winston side of the story. It might be interesting to find out how it compared to whatever Isobel had told her. “All right, you asked for it. The Captain brought the box home from a trip to the Orient as a gift for his bride, and from then on it was passed down through the generations, given to the oldest child on his or her wedding day.”

“The Lovers’ Box,” she said softly. “Why not call it the Bridal Box?”

“Since I wasn’t there when the name originated, I have no idea. At any rate, the box became a sort of talisman, because through all the decades, none of those marriages failed.”

“And now I suppose you’re planning to get married, so you want it back. That will disappoint Kitty Stephens. You didn’t even give her a fair chance—”

“I have no intention of getting married.”

“Well, that’s a relief.”

Cooper eyed her warily. “Why’s that?”

“Oh, not because my mind runs along the same channels as Kitty’s does,” she assured him airily. “It doesn’t matter to me whether you get married. But you see, I’d have bet you weren’t the superstitious sort who would care about either a trinket or a legend—so it’s a relief to know my prophetic abilities haven’t gone completely on the fritz. You’ve left the question unanswered, of course. If you don’t want the box for yourself, why is it so important?”

“The Lovers’ Box should have gone to my mother on her wedding day. Instead, not long before my parents were married, Isobel persuaded my grandfather to take the name literally and give the box to her instead.”

Hannah’s eyes weren’t stormy anymore, but they were darker than Cooper had ever seen them before—like deep, still pools at the edge of a quiet lake. He could almost feel himself teetering on the shore. A man could drown in those eyes if he wasn’t careful.

She was frowning. “I don’t quite see—”

“They were lovers,” he said grimly.

“Isobel and your grandfather were—No.”

Cooper nodded. “Paramours. Hanky-panky partners. Cohorts in the horizontal waltz. My grandfather had a sweet tooth, and Isobel was the little cookie he chose to satisfy it. How many ways do I have to say it?”

“Cookie? Are you sure you haven’t got Isobel mixed up with someone like—oh, Kitty Stephens, say? Isobel was the farthest thing from a cookie that I can imagine.”

“You’re thinking of Isobel at eighty, and I admit it’s a little difficult to picture her inspiring a great passion.” He paused, and added thoughtfully, “Except perhaps for inciting someone to murder her. She could do that without even trying.”

“You didn’t, did you?” Hannah sounded suspicious. “Murder her, I mean.”

“You surely don’t expect me to dignify that with an answer.”

“I guess not,” she mused. “I probably wouldn’t believe you anyway.”

“Thanks,” Cooper said dryly. “At any rate, to get back to the story…Try to imagine Isobel at—your age, say. What are you? Twenty-seven?”

“Isobel was never my age.”

“When she was young, that tongue of hers probably seemed witty instead of sarcastic and callous. She’d have been exotic, slightly shocking—and never boring.”

Hannah shook her head, but Cooper thought it was more in resignation than denial.

“And I’ve seen pictures of her then,” he said softly. “If you can look past the crazy fashions and the strange hairstyles, she was really quite beautiful. Enormous eyes, widow’s peak, interesting cheekbones…rather like yours, as a matter of fact.”

Cooper didn’t realize he’d reached out till his fingertips brushed the hollow of Hannah’s cheek. He heard her catch her breath and told himself to stop. But his hand didn’t seem to get the message. His fingers slid slowly, barely touching the flesh, along her jawline and down her throat. “The long neck, the white throat, what they used to call a bee-stung mouth…” The pad of his thumb tingled as he brushed it ever so softly across her lower lip. “I can understand why my grandfather lost his head.”

The hell of it was, he really could understand. If Isobel had been half as appealing in her prime as Hannah was…

He watched the rise and fall of Hannah’s breasts under the trimly tailored green jacket as she tried to control her breathing, and he knew that his own was just as ragged. What in damnation had he been thinking? This woman wasn’t some cookie. She was dangerous—even more so, in her own way, than Isobel had been.

He picked up his glass and tossed down the rest of his wine. He could smell the musty scent of her perfume on his hand, as if simply touching her had marked him. “Anyway, that’s how Isobel got the box. Along with a whole lot of other things—the condo, the pension fund…”

“How do you know Isobel demanded all those things? Maybe your grandfather was so besotted with her that he’s the one who insisted on setting her up for life.”

“Maybe you’re right—about the condo, at least,” Cooper said deliberately. “From his point of view, it would have been pretty clever to put the love nest right downstairs from his own place, so he didn’t even have to put on an overcoat to go visit his charmer.”

Hannah frowned. “He lived at Barron’s Court, too?”

“In the penthouse I inherited from him. Now that I think about it, perhaps Isobel was the inspiration for his whole scheme to turn the old Barron’s Hotel into condos in the first place. Before that, my grandparents lived in one of the big old mansions south of Grand Avenue—and he could hardly have installed Isobel in the guest room without Gran noticing. But we’re drifting from the point.”

“The Lovers’ Box.” Hannah touched it with a fingertip.

“I want the box so I can put it back where it belongs, Hannah—in my mother’s hands. I’m willing to pay good money for it, just as I was willing to pay Isobel.”

“Oh, really?” Skepticism dripped from Hannah’s voice. “Then—if Isobel was so mercenary—why didn’t she sell it to you?”

He’d thought until then that he was making progress. She’d been softening, he was sure of it, until he’d gotten careless and made a misstep. What was wrong with him, to make him forget that she was a demon of a negotiator?

“Because it wasn’t a matter of money to her, by then,” he said irritably. He knew even as he said it that he was handing Hannah a weapon. But he couldn’t seem to stop himself; once he’d opened the wound his pain seemed to overflow.

“She liked the feeling of power she got from keeping me dangling,” he went on bitterly. “She liked knowing that even though my grandfather had been dead for years, she could still remind his family that she hadn’t gone away. She liked being a thorn in the flesh—cashing her pension check every month, still living just one floor down from the family home, running into me in the elevator from time to time and politely asking how I was doing, as if she were an old friend of the family. And she liked keeping that box where she could look at it now and then and smile.”

And what about you, Hannah? he asked himself. Are you going to be just like her? Are you going to use all that against me?

“I’m sorry,” Hannah said. “I imagine Isobel was always like that. But whatever she did really has nothing to do with me.” She toyed with her wineglass and said casually, “So how much did you offer her for the box?”

He stared at her for a long moment. Well, he thought, he had his answer. She was going to hold him up for everything she could get. “Surely you don’t think I’m going to tell you.”

“You mean you won’t pay me as much as you’d have given her?” She shook her head sadly.

“I’m sure as hell not going to make you a free gift of the information.” His voice was hard-edged. “At least you’ll have to do that much on your own. Isobel did everything else for you. Not only did she give you the box, but she handed you complete instructions on how to bargain with it. She made sure, from the way she wrote her will, that you’d know it was worth more than anything else she could leave you. And by dangling my name, she told you precisely how to cash in on it.” Cooper snapped a bread stick in half. “So I suppose the only question remaining now is how much you’re like her.”

“What?”

“It’s quite apparent you’ve inherited Isobel’s sadistic nature,” he said deliberately. “The unknown is whether you’ve developed it into a fine art, as she did. How much am I going to have to pay to get back what’s mine?”

Hannah stared at him. Cooper put the bread stick between his lips like a cigar and waited to see if the strategy would work. Whatever figure she named, of course, he had no intention of paying it. But once she’d set a price, no matter how outrageous, he could force her into a final compromise. Asking leading questions hadn’t succeeded in getting her to name an amount; would goading her to fury work any better?

“Nothing.”

Her voice was so quiet that he almost thought he’d heard wrong. “What did you say?”

“I mean no amount of money would be enough,” she said. “You’re not getting the box—no matter what.” She fumbled in her bag and tossed a handful of cash onto the table. “That should cover my half of the bill.” She stood, picked up the Lovers’ Box, and stepped away from the table. Then she turned toward him again. “One more thing, Mr. Winston. Since I’ve just paid for a glass of wine that I never intended to drink, I might as well get some good out of it.”

She picked up her still-full glass and with one smooth and efficient turn of her wrist threw the contents at him.

He saw it coming as if in slow motion, first a few droplets and then a tidal wave of red wine, and he closed his eyes against the onslaught. But she hadn’t aimed at his face; the liquid sloshed across the breadth of his chest instead, soaking his favorite tie, the front of his once-white shirt, the lapels of his charcoal suit.

“Excuse me,” Hannah said to the waiter, who had rushed forward, his tray of hors d’oeuvres still balanced, to fumble with a napkin. “I do hope I didn’t get any on the carpet.”

Then she walked away, head high, spine straight, with the Lover’s Box held firmly in both hands, leaving only silence in her wake.

The breeze had picked up, whipping through the canyons of downtown. But Hannah was steaming, too agitated to sit still, so instead of hailing a cab she walked all the way back downtown to Stephens & Webster.

Cooper Winston had deserved every last drop, she told herself. The moment when it was apparent he’d seen the deluge coming and knew he couldn’t do a thing to prevent it would be part of Hannah’s scrapbook of precious memories for the rest of her life. It was just too bad it had been only a glass of wine, and a small one at that; if he’d ordered the bottle, she’d have smashed it over his head.

Of course, she admitted, there was the little matter of effectively squashing any faint possibility that he might consider taking his legal business to Stephens & Webster. And if he were to complain about her conduct to Ken Stephens…

“He still deserved it,” Hannah muttered unrepentantly.

Besides, when she thought about it, she decided that he was unlikely to say anything to anybody about the incident. He’d look like a fool if he told that story—and if there was one thing she was certain of about Cooper, it was that he didn’t like looking silly. Experienced businessman that he was, he would never admit that he’d been outmaneuvered in a straightforward business proposition by a young woman whose law school diploma was practically still warm from the press, much less that Hannah’s final counteroffer had been a glass of wine.

No, his revenge would be of a different sort. And she was fairly sure there would be consequences of her actions—even though the whole thing had been his fault in the first place. If he hadn’t leaped to unwarranted assumptions about her, Hannah wouldn’t have lost her temper at all.

So what if Isobel hadn’t been any plaster saint? That wasn’t exactly a news flash, though Hannah still had a little trouble picturing her elderly cousin as a courtesan extraordinaire. Fluffy, agreeable, and charming weren’t words that sprang to mind where Isobel was concerned.

But then, what made Hannah assume that she knew the criteria for being a good mistress? Maybe fluffy, agreeable, and charming were precisely what men like Cooper’s grandfather weren’t looking for.

Still, whatever Isobel’s history, it didn’t mean that the inclination for extortion and blackmail ran through the rest of the family, as Cooper so clearly believed.

He’d been remembering his fifteen million dollars, of course. But though Hannah admitted that her timing could have been a lot more convenient, there had been nothing shady about her actions in the restaurant chain deal. She’d simply discovered, at the very last minute, a loophole that everyone else had overlooked altogether.

What really annoyed her about the Lovers’ Box was the fact that right up till the last minute she’d actually been feeling sympathetic. She’d been almost ready to wipe away a tear as she handed his treasure back to him. The last foolish question she’d asked had been prompted more by curiosity than anything else; she’d been not only wondering exactly how much the box was worth to him, but she’d been toying with the idea of how grateful he’d be when she told him he didn’t have to pay her anything at all…

Not far from the law office, on a sudden whim, she stopped to take a closer look at Cooper’s treasure.

In strong sunlight, the Lovers’ Box looked even less likely as an object of obsession. It was pretty enough, but on close inspection she could see a basic crudity about the carving and a certain lack of grace in the proportions of the box. One thing was certain; Cooper had been right when he said that no one else would pay as much for it as he was willing to do.

You probably should have grabbed the five hundred bucks and run, Hannah thought wryly. But no, she’d had to probe for the whole story. What on earth had she been thinking of?

And what was she going to do now?

Perhaps more important, what would Cooper do? He was momentarily stymied, but Hannah didn’t expect that state of affairs to last long. In fact, she wouldn’t be surprised if he’d thought out another plan by the time he’d changed his shirt.

But what would he try next? Persuasion? Threats? Outright burglary?

She’d have to deal with those things when and if they came up. In the meantime, she decided, there were a few basic measures she could take in the name of self-protection.

As soon as she’d stashed the Lovers’ Box in a hiding place that she hoped was safely out of Cooper’s reach, she dusted one problem from her hands. But there was still Brenton Bannister to consider. Brenton, and his promise of a very special evening. One, he had seemed to imply, which would change the rest of Hannah’s life.

The uneasy flutter she’d felt in the pit of her stomach when he’d issued the invitation came back again, even more strongly.

Hannah was in the law library, still poring over Jacob Jones’s files, when Brenton came in. “What’s keeping you?” he said. “I’ve been waiting.”

Hannah stopped fitting together the bits of an invoice which had crumbled with age. “You said you had clients all afternoon. I told your secretary I’d be here if you needed me.”

“Very discreet of you to put it that way.” He chuckled. “I always knew you had sense, Hannah. She said you were very bright-eyed when you came in, and that you looked as if you’d had quite a surprise.”

“I suppose you could put it that way.” Hannah fitted the last piece of the invoice into place, glanced at it, concluded that the information it contained carried no importance to the legal matter at hand, and put it in the finished stack.

“So tell me the good news. How did you and Ken Stephens get along? And when will Isobel’s estate all be wrapped up?”

“Oh, it’s pretty well finished already,” Hannah said dryly. “All but the dust settling.”

“I was right, wasn’t I?” Brenton pushed aside a stack of papers and sat down on the corner of the table. “She left you everything she owned.”

“Just about.”

“What did I tell you?” Satisfaction almost dripped from his voice. “You can give me all the details over a nice long dinner.”

Hannah brushed off her hands and stood up. As she fitted the lid back on the box, she said casually, “You were absolutely right, Brenton. The only trouble with your scenario is that Isobel cut it right down to the wire and died without a penny to her name. So I was right, too—because in fact she didn’t leave me anything at all.”

She’d taken two steps toward the door before she realized that Brenton hadn’t moved, except for his mouth dropping open.

That was pretty much the identical reaction she’d had, of course. Not inheriting hadn’t surprised her—but the fact that there was nothing to inherit had been a stunner.

“Nothing?” Brenton’s voice was almost a croak. “But…but she was a wealthy woman!”

“She appeared to be a wealthy woman,” Hannah corrected. “In fact, she was something of an expert at appearing to be well-off.” She succinctly repeated Ken Stephens’s rundown regarding Isobel’s condo, furniture, jewelry, china, silver, and furs.

She was just starting to tell Brenton about the odd little Lovers’ Box when she realized that would lead almost inevitably to telling him about the scene at Cicero’s.

Brenton seemed too shocked to notice that her story had abruptly broken off. “Nothing,” he repeated. “She left you nothing at all?”

Hannah’s eyes narrowed. “Exactly why is that so important?”

“Oh, I just…” His voice was little more than a whisper. “I was so certain. At least, she always seemed to indicate that you’d get everything she owned.”

“I did. She just didn’t own much of anything.”

“But it was like she told me that you would—” He broke off.

Hannah braced her hands on the table. “You seriously thought I was going to be rich, didn’t you?”

He didn’t answer, but his gaze shifted uneasily away.

And you were planning to end up with a good share of my supposed wealth, weren’t you? Now she understood. That was why Brenton had invited her out tonight, after months of casual friendliness. That was why he’d trotted out the line about getting to know her, and that was why he’d left it dangling instead of going on to tell her how special she was, and how important she’d become to him. He’d left it to Hannah to fill in the blank, and she’d done exactly as he’d expected she would.

Now she could see precisely how careful he’d been to say nothing that could be taken as a commitment. Nothing that he couldn’t escape. Even that invitation to dinner had been very carefully phrased….

Hannah kept her voice level. “Are we still going out tonight, Brenton?”

She didn’t quite know what she’d do if he said yes, for she’d rather share a meal with a rattlesnake. But she suspected that Brenton was so eager to escape that he wouldn’t stop to consider the possibility she was bluffing.

“Actually…” His voice almost rasped. “You don’t feel like celebrating, I’m sure, under the circumstances. So maybe it would be better if we didn’t.”

How thoughtful it was of him, Hannah mused, to put her feelings first! “Then how about taking me out for a nice dinner to commiserate?” she asked gently.

He swallowed hard. He looked, she thought, like a hunted rabbit. “The Jones case,” he said. “I really do need to burn the midnight oil on it, so—”

“And of course it would be foolish to spend money on me at the Flamingo Room if there’s no chance of getting it back.”

She could see the truth written in his face.

Too annoyed to think it through, Hannah said, “If I’d told you Isobel had left me a million or two, would you have proposed to me tonight, Brenton? Or would you have waited till you could check out the facts with Ken Stephens, just to be certain I was telling the truth?”

She stopped there, but only by biting her tongue hard. No matter how much he deserved it, she couldn’t tell him to jump off a cliff; he was still her boss.

And it was suddenly and perfectly clear to Hannah that not only was Brenton Bannister a jerk, but he was the kind of animal who became most dangerous when cornered. Almost accidentally, she’d done precisely that, by forcing him to admit—if only by a look—what he had plotted.

She’d been concerned about what kind of revenge Cooper might take on her—but she was terrified of what Brenton might do.

She was an embarrassment to him now, that was clear. Perhaps he even saw her as a threat, able to damage his career by telling this story. And in Brenton Bannister’s narrow view of the world, whether she was an embarrassment or an active danger, the answer was obviously the same: Hannah would have to go.

He would stay within the rules, for he was too clever to break them and give her cause to charge him with sexual harassment or discrimination. But one way or another, he’d get rid of her—and soon.

Unless she did something to prevent it.

But what could she possibly do?

She forced herself to smile at him. “You’re right,” she said. “It’s just as well we’re not going out. We’ve both got work to do to have the Jones case ready for trial. In fact, I’m going to take a box of papers home with me now. But first, I want to thank you, Brenton. It has been a very special evening.”

And, she thought wryly, it had certainly turned out to be one which would change the rest of her life.

CHAPTER THREE

BY THE time Hannah got halfway back to Barron’s Court, she was regretting the impulse which had made her seize a carton of Jacob Jones’s papers. She’d done it only as a sort of bluff—so that Brenton wouldn’t be able to accuse her of walking out on undone tasks—rather than because she had any real intention of working tonight; with her mind going in circles, she’d be too afraid of missing something important.

But as she walked the few blocks from the law firm to Barron’s Court, the box had grown as heavy as the weight that seemed to have descended on her shoulders. She propped the carton on a corner of a small table in the lobby, glad of a moment’s relief, while she waited for the elevator.

How much different things looked than they had early in the morning, she thought, when she and Brutus had stood right here, fresh from a walk and feeling great. In one day, she’d near-as-nothing lost both her home and her job….

And Cooper Winston would no doubt add, with a note of glee in his voice, that she’d lost her expectations, as well. He probably thought the only reason she’d come to visit Isobel in the first place had been to look over her circumstances and decide if the old woman was worthwhile prey!

Impatiently, Hannah pushed the button again. The way her luck was running, the elevator had probably broken down. At least, the lighted dial above the polished Art Deco doors said that the darned thing hadn’t moved off seven since she’d come in.

All she wanted to do was get upstairs, fix herself a cup of tea, climb into her bed, and pull the comforter over her head while she waited for a new day to dawn. Whatever happened tomorrow, she told herself, it couldn’t possibly be as bad as today had been.

She was bracing herself for the climb up the long flights of stairs—and wishing even more that she’d left the carton of papers in the law library—when the elevator finally began to move. “And there’s absolutely no doubt,” she muttered, “the way my day has been going, who is going to get off when it gets to the lobby.” It was like the man had radar, knowing precisely when and where he was least wanted.

She stepped to the side as the door opened. To her surprise, however, instead of Cooper, the occupant was a jeans-clad workman who was straining to carry a thick slab of dark-stained wood which was nearly as broad as his outstretched arms. He nodded to Hannah as he maneuvered the slab out into the lobby, then stopped just a few steps away to readjust the padding which had started to slip away from the wood.

She said, “It would be easier to move something that size on the service elevator. You do know Barron’s Court has a service elevator? It allows this one to be left free for the residents to use.”

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